Hawk and Owl

By D. Bruce YoltonOther Red-tailed Hawks, Owls

Today, I saw a hawk and an owl.

I started out doing a sweep around the pair of Eastern Screech-Owls, where we’ve lost track of one of the owl’s daytime roosts.  I started out at a tree I thought was a likely candidate, and heard two crying squirrels.  I looked around and saw a first-year juvenile Red-tailed Hawk finishing up a meal.  The prey had already been well eaten at this point, so I couldn’t figure out what was for dinner.

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I went down to the regular cavity and there was no sign of an Eastern Screech-Owl until quite late.  There was this first glimpse at 4:42.
A real look didn’t occur until almost 5:00 p.m.   I don’t know if it was the extra light from the reflection off the icy snow or the cool temperatures that delayed the fly out.
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We had the usual look left, look right exploration of the suroundings.  The fly out was at 5:19 p.m.  I missed the actual fly out and could not find the bird after it had left the cavity.